[ga] Re: More Stolen Domains -- not FUD

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

--- "Ross Wm. Rader" <ross@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Domain names are being ripped off all the time. There is nothing new
> in 
> this and all the rules in the world aren't going to change the fact
> that 
> bad registrars, negligent registrants, ne'er-do-wells and other shady
> 
> characters are going to cause domain names to change hands outside
> the 
> process.
> 
> This is called fraud, aka crime.

We're on the same side here -- I'm just suggesting mechanisms to make
it harder on the thieves. I still think OpenSRS is the safest registrar
for my domains....other registrants who aren't as knowledgeable deserve
better protection. How many fraudsters have even been caught? The
obstacles in place now favour the thieves. Ask Bhavin why the
nameservers of AEM.com haven't been changed yet, or those of F3.com,
even though they are in the same account as the thief who stole
Easy-Dater.com, with the same FAKE WHOIS. The answer will demonstrate
to you why the current system still sucks.

> That's a pretty revisionist view of history George. I'm not going to 
> rehash ancient history except to say that the old system was a
> complete 
> and dismal failure. The registries refused to enforce the shreds of 
> policy that did exist and ICANN had no enforcement or oversight 
> capability at all. It was the wild west. The new policy changes this
> and 
> allows for substantial room to fix problems and gives ICANN the 
> capability it needs to make sure that the trains are running on time,
> 
> registrars aren't gaming the system and that domain names that are 
> stolen, eventually end up in the right hands.

I agree that the old system wasn't perfect. The only "teeth" in the new
policy was that the losing registrar HAD to provide a mechanism to
easily unlock the domain name. The list of ADDITIONAL things that were
done swung the pendulum away from security.

I disagree with you that stolen domains end up in the right hands.
There are a lot of stolen domain names that STAY in the thieves hands,
or are resold to unwitting/uncaring buyers, because the prior owners
were completely unreachable. Those names should have instead expired
and been open to registration by anyone. If there's no complainant,
except the "public", how is the name recovered?? 

Looking towards a solution, I made 5 specific suggestions to improve
things. I hope those are considered (some can be implemented by
registrars without ICANN consent), and I'd appreciate your comments on
them (given it's Sunday, I doubt you had time to read them or consider
them carefully, but I think they would greatly help secure our domains,
and also assist in identifying domains with poor provenance that were
hijacked and are still in the possession of the hijackers (i.e. and
were not detected because the prior registrant was unreachable).

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/